The greatest crimes of human history are made possible by the most colorless human beings. They are the careerists. The bureaucrats. The cynics. They do the little chores that make vast, complicated systems of exploitation and death a reality. …

Christopher Browning’s collection of essays, “The Path to Genocide,” notes that it was the “moderate,” “normal” bureaucrats, not the zealots, who made the Holocaust possible. Germaine Tillion pointed out “the tragic easiness [during the Holocaust] with which ‘decent’ people could become the most callous executioners without seeming to notice what was happening to them.” The Russian novelist Vasily Grossman in his book “Forever Flowing” observed that “the new state did not require holy apostles, fanatic, inspired builders, faithful, devout disciples. The new state did not even require servants—just clerks.”

“If I am traitor, who did I betray?” he asked. “I gave all my information to the American public, to American journalists who are reporting on American issues. If they see that as treason, I think people really need to consider who they think they’re working for. The public is supposed to be their boss, not their enemy. Beyond that as far as my personal safety, I’ll never be fully safe until these systems have changed.” Edward Snowden

I felt the same way when I read The Culture of Make Believe. It is a hard read that made me cry, a lot. I thanked Derrick Jensen for that body of work and he told me he cried writing it. It’s a real wake up call.

The Culture of Make Believe by Derrick Jensen, who pulls no punches in his analysis of the dominant culture, and that makes his reading pretty tough to get through. It took me over two years to read both volumes of Endgame, but I’m glad I did. Derrick is a talented writer who has the ability to grab the attention of even his most ardent detractors. If you don’t feel like resisting with all of your might after reading his work, then you really don’t have a pulse. Kourtney Mitchell

Tonite I watched Blackfish, the documentary about SeaWorld’s exploitation and enslavement of orcas to the great expense of trainers who died, unaware of the many trainer deaths that were being covered up.

Watch this 2:23 min trailer before you even consider going. To my embarassment, I went there twice when I was ignorant of many things.

‘This very real difference between GM plants and their conventional counterparts is one of the basic truths that biotech proponents have endeavoured to obscure. As part of the process, they portrayed the various concerns as merely the ignorant opinions of misinformed individuals – and derided them as not only unscientific, but anti-science…

‘They then set to work to convince the public and government officials, through the dissemination of false information, that there was an overwhelming expert consensus, based on solid evidence, that the new foods were safe. Yet this, as Druker points out, was clearly not true…

‘Druker describes how amazingly successful the biotech lobby has been – and the extent to which the general public and government decision makers have been hoodwinked by the clever and methodical twisting of the facts and the propagation of many myths. Moreover, it appears that a number of respected scientific institutions, as well as many eminent scientists, were complicit in this relentless spreading of disinformation…
More: Senior academic condemns ‘deluded’ supporters of GM food as being ‘anti-science’ and ignoring evidence of dangers: Dr Jane Goodall argues supporters of GM food ignored evidence of harm.

…the commercialization of GE foods occurred through the unbelievably poor judgment — if not downright corruption — of the US Food and Drug Administration (the FDA)… it apparently ignored (and covered up) the concerns of its own scientists and then violated a federal statute and its own regulations by permitting GE foods to be marketed without any testing whatsoever.

From now, know that every border you cross, every purchase you make, every call you dial, every cell phone tower you pass, friend you keep, article you write, site you visit, subject line you type, and packet you route, is in the hands of a system whose reach is unlimited but whose safeguards are not. Your victimization by the NSA system means that you are well aware of the threat that unrestricted, secret abilities pose for democracies. ~ Edward Snowden to Laura Poitras

Take the money out of politics–Overturn Citizens United
6:37 min; lyrics below

WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?

You might be a young man, with the mountain in his step,
In search of El Dorado, but you haven’t found it yet.
Or you might be an old man, with his whole life at his back,
And you can hear eternity whispering down the track.
Or maybe you’re a woman, or just about to be.
And you can feel the generations, swimming in your sea.
But you know that it’s coming, as surely as the dawn:
The battle for the future, baby. Which side are you on?

Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.
Come on, come on, come on.
Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.
Which side are you on?
Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.
The battle lines are drawn.
Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.
Which side? Which side are you on?
Which side?

The corporations attacking
The natural world: drilling and fracking.
All done with the backing
Of the craven and corrupt.
Or the ones who fight
For the Earth, with all their might,
And in the name of all that’s right,
Confront and disrupt.
There’s a restlessness out in the street.
There’s a question in the air:
How long, if this theft goes on, will our country still be here?
People know the game is rigged, even as they play.
They see their expectations slowly slip away.
They’ve got subsidies for billionaires, there’s a bailout for the banks,
A monopoly on medicine, and a sale on armored tanks.
The whole damned country’s being sold, out that revolving door
Between Washington and Wall Street, like it’s one big Dollar Store.

Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.
Come on, come on, come on.
Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.
Which side are you on?
Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.
The battle lines are drawn.
Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.
Which side? Which side are you on?
Which side?

The bankers and their special friends,
Who rob you time and again,
Who like to pretend they’re the only game in town?
Or The People, who
Hope, with everything they do,
They can build something new,
And turn this world around?

Who owns the elections? Who profits either way?
Who ends up with all that money [the] politicians pay?
To be the fearless leader, to put themselves across,
To be the one entrusted with the profit and the loss.
You try hard to believe that when you cast your vote it counts.
But elections are won with money, in ever larger amounts.
Take the money out of politics, and maybe we might see
This country turn back into something more like democracy.

Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.
Come on, come on, come on.
Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.
Which side are you on?
Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.
The battle lines are drawn.
Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.
Which side? Which side are you on?